The Sydney Film Festival will go ahead in a smaller and all-digital format next month, organizers announced on Monday. They had previously announced that this year’s event would be cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak, and that the next edition would be held in 2021.

The virtual festival will run June 10-21. The program will include: world premieres of compelling true stories from some of Australian documentary filmmakers; a program of shorts from rising stars of the Australian film industry; and films from European female directors.

It will also host a series of prize events: the Documentary Australia Foundation Award for Australian Documentary; the Dendy Awards for Australian Short Films; and Europe! Voices of Women in Film.

“This year’s special 67th Sydney Film Festival: Virtual Edition and Awards is all about bringing audiences across the nation together at a particularly challenging time in celebration of filmmakers and particularly the Australian film industry,” said Sydney Film Festival Director Nashen Moodley in a prepared statement.

Organizers describe the virtual edition of the SFF as a national event. But they did not explain whether all components would be ticketed and require payment. Nor did they say whether events and screenings could be accessed from outside the country. The technology provider was also not identified.

Details of the line-up and ticket sales procedures will be unveiled on May 27.

Australia has recorded 6,801 coronavirus infections and 95 deaths from the disease. The country has been in a strict lockdown since late March, but authorities are now sufficiently confident that they have the disease under control that they are discussing a phased reduction of restrictions. De-escalation measures could include opening Australia’s borders to travelers from New Zealand, another Asia-Pacific country which has largely tamed the outbreak.

In today’s film news roundup, the documentary “You Cannot Kill David Arquette” and the thriller “Broil” find homes and AFI unveils winners of its Writers’ Room Ready Awards.

ACQUISITIONS

Super Ltd, Neon’s boutique division, has acquired North American rights to David Darg and Price James’ documentary, “You Cannot Kill David Arquette,” which is an official selection of the 2020 SXSW Film Festival.

Filmed over three years chronicling the journey through Arquette’s life and stint in wrestling, the film had its debut in early March at Arquette’s California home 24 hours after hearing about the SXSW cancellation, surrounded by friends, family and a homemade wrestling ring.

Arquette starred as a wrestling-obsessed fan in the 2000 movie “Ready to Rumble” and was crowned world champion as a marketing stunt, making him the most hated man in professional wrestling as a result. In “You Cannot Kill David Arquette,” Arquette seeks redemption by returning to the ring for 19 matches.

“I set out to make this film to stand up for myself, to rewrite the ending to my story, and find a place where I could be proud of my time in the ring. We couldn’t wish for a better company to share this love letter to the wrestling world,” Arquette said.

The film is directed by David Darg and Price James and produced by Christina McLarty Arquette, Bryn Mooser, Darg, Ross Levine and Stacey Souther. Jeff Deutchman negotiated the deal with Eric Sloss of Cinetic, on behalf of the filmmakers.

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Well Go USA Entertainment has acquired the U.S. rights to Canadian thriller “Broil” and plans a digital release on Oct. 13.

Konrad plays a teen who, after a violent incident with an insufferable school nemesis, is sent to live with her reclusive grandfather (Murphy) in his lavish mountain estate. As she seeks to uncover the true origin of her eccentric grandfather’s exorbitant wealth, she is caught between two warring factions of the family.

“Broil” was written by Drake and Piper Mars and produced by Corey Large (“It Follows”).

AFI AWARDS

The American Film Institute has selected four winners of its Writers’ Room Ready Awards, which recognizes outstanding work by AFI Conservatory Screenwriting Fellows.

The 2020 winners are: Haley Bartels, Christina Kingsleigh Licud, Kenda Greenwood Moran and Alessandro Pederzoli. The selected recipients will be paired with mentors, giving them an opportunity to work directly with established artists.

The mentors for 2020 include:LaToya Morgan (“The Walking Dead”), Andy Siara (“Lodge 49”), Christina Strain (“The Magicians”) and Sheila Wilson (“Warrior Nun”). Siara, Strain and Wilson won the award during their time at the Conservatory.

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Life Is Beautiful, the annual three-day music and arts festival in downtown Las Vegas, announced Tuesday that it will not be taking place this year.

The festival was scheduled to take place Sept. 18-20, but a performance lineup had not yet been announced and passes had not gone on sale. Last year, the diverse artist roster included Billie Eilish, Chance the Rapper, Post Malone, Vampire Weekend, Maggie Rogers and Janelle Monae.

The decision to wait until 2021 is among the first outright cancellations by a major festival that was scheduled to take place in the fall, in what could be a bellwether for other similarly timed fests currently weighing their options.

In the announcement made on their Instagram, the Life Is Beautiful team explained the reasoning behind their decision.

“We were more excited than ever to share the vision of this year’s festival with you,” the statement said. “Instead, this moment has given us the opportunity to pause and assess what is truly important. It has given us the space to reflect and to grow, to refocus on our work, and to find new ways to give back to our community beyond the three days of the festival. Our hearts are heavy, but our resilience is unstoppable.”

Festival organizer Justin Weniger said in a press release that Life Is Beautiful is working on creating new initiatives to bring together its community in these unprecedented times, in addition to ensuring that the festival can make a full comeback next year.

“From the beginning, Life Is Beautiful has been a year-round, aspirational mantra that materializes into a festival that unites visitors from around the world,” Weniger said. “For this year, that festival won’t happen but there has never been a more important time to remind us all that life is indeed beautiful. That is what we are going to do, in ways large and small.”

Another major Las Vegas festival, Electric Daisy Carnival, was recently postponed until October. Burning Man 2020, which would have taken place in Nevada from Aug. 30-Sept. 7, was canceled outright earlier this month.

Las Vegas’ Life is Beautiful festival has announced that the three-day event will not happen this year due to the coronavirus. However, Life Is Beautiful organizers will use their resources towards supporting the Vegas community.

“We were more excited than ever to share the vision of this year’s festival with you,” the festival wrote in an open letter to fans. “Instead, this moment has given us the opportunity to pause and assess what is truly important. It has given us the space to reflect and to grow, to refocus on our work, and to find new ways to give back to our community beyond the three days of the festival.”

“Our hearts are heavy, but our resilience is unstoppable,” the statement continues.

Life is Beautiful is working to create new initiatives that will impact supporters on a local, national and global scale, in addition to making a full return with the festival in 2021.

“It’s clear the health and economic hardships from the COVID-19 crisis will impact us all for some time to come,” festival organizer Justin Weniger said in a statement. “In light of this, we made the determination to re-examine the role Life is Beautiful plays in the community and how we can put our resources, creativity and time into doing what we always set out to do: inspire and bring together a community.”

In today’s film news roundup, Canada’s largest LGBTQ film festival gets postponed, the commercial industry’s health plan addresses the coronavirus pandemic and Margaret Qualley’s “A Head Full of Ghosts” finds a home.

FILM FESTIVAL

Inside Out, Canada’s largest LGBTQ film festival, has postponed this year’s 30th anniversary edition to Oct. 1-11 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The festival had been scheduled for May 21-31 in Toronto. Inside Out said Wednesday that it would present several key initiatives in an online format, including its LGBTQ international feature film financing forum, its annual short film pitch competition, the launch of the previously announced content platform for youth and an online sneak peek of the festival’s 30th anniversary archival exhibit.

“Inside Out is committed to connecting filmmakers, industry, and communities year-round, and will be utilizing all available methods to do so during this unprecedented time,” the organization said. “All tickets and packages that have been previously purchased for this year’s festival will remain valid for the new October dates.”

Inside Out presents the 11-day Toronto LGBT Film Festival (Toronto’s third-largest festival after TIFF and Hot Docs), a four-day festival in Ottawa, a year-round screening and event series at the TIFF Bell Lightbox and professional development initiatives, including the world’s only LGBTQ Feature Film Financing Forum.

HEALTH BENEFITS

The Producers’ Health Benefits Plan, which administers benefits to employers, staff and freelancers in the commercials production industry, has taken a series of actions addressing the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic.

The plan announced Wednesday it will ensure that covered freelance employees are not at risk of losing their health benefits during the crisis; allow employers the option to temporarily insure laid off employees; and offer discounted premiums to those who may lose employer-paid coverage. PHBP covers approximately 4,000 workers and their families, with over 200 participating employers.

“PHBP’s primary reason for being is the health and welfare of the commercial industry’s freelancers and staff, and the production and post companies that employ them,” said Sean Cooley, executive director. “We’ve taken measures today to ensure our freelance population does not lose coverage due to the sudden halt of production, as well as offering financial relief by temporarily waiving all monthly fees such as dependent coverage costs.”

The plan is also discounting monthly COBRA premiums, the self-paid continuation coverage offered to employees no longer covered on an employer’s plan. All qualification periods for freelancers will be extended three months. PHBP will allow any furloughed or laid off covered staff employee to remain on their employer’s staff coverage (so long as the employer continues premium payments) through May 31. PHBP will allow any currently covered full-time employee whose hours are reduced to part-time status with the same employer to remain on their employer’s staff coverage for April, May and June.

ACQUISITION

STXfilms has bought rights to Scott Cooper’s upcoming horror movie “A Head Full of Ghosts,” with “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” actor Margaret Qualley in the lead role.

STX will distribute in the U.S. and U.K. and collaborate with output partners in Latin America (Sun), Canada (Elevation) and Benelux. “A Head Full of Ghosts” is backed by Cross Creek, Team Downey and The Allegiance Theater. CAA Media Finance represented U.S. rights. Mad River launched foreign sales at the European Film Market in Berlin last month.

“A Head Full of Ghosts” is adapted from Paul Tremblay’s 2015 horror novel about a 23-year-old woman recalling how her older sister had become unhinged 15 years earlier, veering between schizophrenia and demonic possession. Producers are Daniel Dubiecki and Lara Alameddine of the Allegiance Theater, Susan Downey of Team Downey, Tyler Thompson of Cross Creek, Cooper and David Gambino. Robert Downey Jr. is executive producing.

Qualley’s credits include “Fosse/Verdon” and “My Salinger Year,” which opened Berlin. Cooper most recently directed “Antlers,” starring Keri Russell and Jesse Plemons. The news was first reported by Deadline Hollywood.

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Amid a growing lineup of postponed or canceled industry events in the wake of the coronavirus crisis, Essence Communications has issued a statement that it is planning to proceed with its 2020 Essence Festival of Culture — at least for now. Scheduled for July 1-5 in New Orleans, the festival will feature headliners Bruno Mars and Janet Jackson.

Noting that “our first priority will always be the safety and well-being of our Festival-goers and everyone who contributes” to the annual event, the Essence Communications statement says in part, “Based on the latest information, including increasing public health interventions and measures being implemented domestically and internationally, and the considerable amount of time to assess and respond to developments between now and July, we are planning to proceed with the 2020 ESSENCE Festival of Culture as currently scheduled, July 1-5 in New Orleans. Still, as a precautionary and proactive measure and with health as the foremost consideration, we are also identifying and securing alternate dates to ensure that we can adjust as quickly and seamlessly as possible in the event that circumstances require. Should that happen, we will honor all tickets sold for prior scheduled dates.”

In addition to Mars and Jackson, the 2020 Essence lineup includes Janelle Monae, Raphael Saadiq, Ari Lennox and Summer Walker.

Here is the full statement from Essence Communications:

We know that we are all focused on the health of ourselves, our loved ones, and our communities, and with 16 weeks until the scheduled 2020 ESSENCE Festival of Culture, we wanted to provide an update to our community and partners regarding our plans in light of coronavirus/COVID-19.

Our first priority will always be the safety and well-being of our Festival-goers and everyone who contributes to making the Essence Festival of Culture such an enriching, entertaining and incredible experience, and we will continue to evaluate the situation and use all available resources and intelligence to that end. We are closely monitoring the unfolding developments and updated information from the World Health Organization (WHO), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), public health agencies and our partners in the City of New Orleans and State of Louisiana.

Based on the latest information, including increasing public health interventions and measures being implemented domestically and internationally, and the considerable amount of time to assess and respond to developments between now and July, we are planning to proceed with the 2020 ESSENCE Festival of Culture as currently scheduled, July 1-5 in New Orleans. Still, as a precautionary and proactive measure and with health as the foremost consideration, we are also identifying and securing alternate dates to ensure that we can adjust as quickly and seamlessly as possible in the event that circumstances require. Should that happen, we will honor all tickets sold for prior scheduled dates.

In the meantime, we are excited to share more about our daytime empowerment programming and our nighttime concert line-up — including headliners Bruno Mars and Janet Jackson — as we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of ESSENCE and look forward to seeing everyone in July.

‘ESSENCE is a multi-cultural, multi-generational treasure in the City of New Orleans and this year, with the return to Ghana, we’ve come full circle,” said Mayor LaToya Cantrell, Mayor of New Orleans. ‘However, with the commemoration of our past, we must lean on wisdom and sound judgement to shape our future. Public health and public safety will always remain top priorities. As we continue to monitor the spread of COVID-19, know that we are taking every precaution to operate in the best interest of the attendees who make ESSENCE what it is.’

ESSENCE will continue to provide updates to our valued community of Festival-goers and partners regarding any new developments.

In today’s film news roundup, four film festivals have opted to pull the plug, the horror film “Infection” finds a home, Heidi Honeycutt gets hired and “Where the Crawdads Sing” gets a writer.

CANCELLATIONS

A quartet of mid-size film festivals announced Wednesday that they are calling off their events due to concerns over the coronavirus pandemic.

The Beverly Hills Film Festival, the Cleveland Film Festival, the Full Frame Festival at Duke University and the New York Children’s Film Festival all decided to scrub their events.

The Beverly Hills event, which was scheduled to occur on April 1-5, was postponed until further notice. “Due to the fact that the Beverly Hills Film Festival will bring together thousands of attendees locally and globally, it is our ethical and moral responsibility to not participate in the possible outbreak of COVID-19,” organizers said in a statement.

The Cleveland Film Festival said it would hold next year’s event on April 7-18, 2021, adding, “This is a difficult situation for all involved. We are grateful for your understanding, loyalty, and continued support during this challenging time.”

ACQUISITIONS

U.K. sales company Jinga Films has sold Flavio Pedota’s virus horror film “Infection” to Dark Sky Films, which has scheduled an April 14 VOD and DVD release for the United States.

The story centers on a new strand of the rabies virus turning the population of Venezuela into bloodthirsty cannibals. A young doctor finds himself separated from his son and must use every resource to find his only child and hopefully unlock the secret to a cure for the deadly disease.

“Infection” received its world premiere at the Guadalajara Film Festival and has since screened at Sitges (Spain), Fantasporto (Portugal), Utopiales (France), Popcorn Frights (U.S.), Fantaspoa (Brasil), Morbido (Mexico), Raindance (U.K.) and Festival of Fear in Canada, where it won best film. It’s been acquired for distribution by Tema (Spain), Cinema Novo (Portugal), New Select (Japan), MovieCloud (Taiwan) and First Wave (Vietnam).

EXECUTIVE HIRE

Veteran programmer and acquisition executive Heidi Honeycutt has joined Shaked Berenson’s Entertainment Squad as vice president of episodic and short-form content.

Honeycutt was the head of the Nightfall section of the Los Angeles Film Festival before joining Fiction Riot as VP of content acquisitions in 2017. She is also a co-founder and director of programming of Etheria, the American Cinematheque’s annual genre showcase of films made by emerging women directors.

“Heidi has a great eye for talent and is known to champion diverse and fresh voices,” said Berenson. “We are glad to support her vision of creating a space for emerging artists to find audience in alternative storytelling formats.”

The company recently released the authorized Quentin Tarantino documentary “QT8: The First Eight.”

PROJECT ADVANCEMENT

Academy Award-nominated writer Lucy Alibar has signed on to write the screenplay for the movie version of Delia Owens’ bestselling novel “Where the Crawdads Sing.”

Alibar, who received an Academy Award nomination for best adapted screenplay for co-writing “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” most recently adapted her original play “Christmas and Jubilee Behold the Meteor Shower” for film as “Troop Zero,” which stars Viola Davis, Jim Gaffigan, Allison Janney and McKenna Grace.

Set against the backdrop of the mid-20th Century South, “Where the Crawdads Sing” centers on a young woman who raises herself all alone in the marshes outside of her small town. When her former boyfriend is found dead, she is thrust into the spotlight, instantly branded by the local townspeople and law enforcement as the prime suspect for his murder. G.P. Putnam’s Sons published the book in 2018. The news was first reported by Deadline Hollywood.

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As the number of coronavirus cases in France rises to 1,126, the country’s health minister has banned gatherings of more than 1,000 people in an effort to contain the outbreak, which has already caused 19 deaths.

In a televised press conference on Sunday evening, France’s health minister Olivier Véran said some exceptions to the ban will be made for exams, public transportation and demonstrations, among others.

Véran had previously issued a decree on Thursday for indoor gatherings of more than 5,000 people until May 31 — a date that was later readjusted to April 15.

Although the minister didn’t provide a timeline for the new 1,000-person ban, it is also believed to be valid until April 15, which raises concerns about several events, such as Series Mania, the international series festival set to run March 20-29 in Lille.

Series Mania organizers said earlier this week that they were not concerned by the ban because they don’t host more than 5,000 people in the same venue simultaneously. In reaction to the decree, the event even issued a letter to delegates saying they were expecting about 3,000 participants, which would allow them to maintain the festival.

Meanwhile, organizers of the Cannes Film Festival, set to kick off May 12, have said they are still pursuing the selection of films and will be unveiling the lineup on April 16. The event said the number of registered participants was up 9% as of Friday.

Along with Italy and Germany, France is one of the countries that has been hardest hit by coronavirus in Europe. The virus outbreak in France has already caused the cancellation of MipTV, the Cannes-set international TV showcase that was meant to run March 30-April 2, while Canneseries, the annual drama festival run in partnership with Reed Midem, has been postponed to debut alongside Mipcom in October.

While the vast majority of the country’s 2,000 theaters are open, many distributors in France — notably Warner Bros., Studiocanal and Le Pacte and Gaumont — have postponed their film releases.

Friday, March 6, was a surreal day. We were putting the finishing touches on the sound mix for our film “We Are As Gods,” a feature documentary about counterculture icon and environmentalist Stewart Brand that was set to premiere at SXSW.

It was the last day of our sound mix at Skywalker Ranch, which marked the end of a three-year journey making this film. We broke for lunch with only hours remaining, but by the time we left the cafe, SXSW had been spiked by the City of Austin over the very real and horrifying concerns over COVID-19, throwing our film and our whole world into a tailspin.

While the cancellation started to feel imminent early in the week when big tech and film studios began pulling out of the festival, it was a gut punch to receive the official news: our film premiere was cancelled.

Being sceptics and filmmakers who cover science, we know the seriousness of coronavirus. The thought of people dying or getting very ill because of a film festival is haunting. Although Stewart is healthy and in great shape (he does crossfit twice a week), he’s over 80 and could be at higher risk of serious effects from COVID-19. The City of Austin and SXSW did the right thing, but it does highlight the crude reality of opportunities and resources when you are an independent filmmaker.

It’s easy for big streamers such as Apple, Netflix and Amazon Studios to pull out — those titles will be landing on a platform regardless of SXSW. It’s entirely different for indies whose film’s success is based on its reception at the festival. A good festival launch can dictate whether or not independent films, many of which are from first-time directors, are seen at all.

We know this from experience. This would have been our third world premiere at SXSW — we previously screened “The Immortalists” (2014) and “Bill Nye: Science Guy” (2017). Both of these films found distribution because of the festival.

One of the traits that truly distinguishes SXSW is that the programming staff takes risks on new filmmakers. We started our filmmaking careers because Janet Pierson, director of film at SXSW, took a chance on “The Immortalists.” We had a small team, no grants from the known film world or organizational imprimaturs, yet Janet and her team believed in us as artists and took a flyer on this weird documentary about scientists trying to live forever.

Fresh out of film school, an invitation to screen at SXSW booted up our careers. We feel for the other independent filmmakers who won’t be given their chance — especially the first-time and emerging filmmakers who just spent years trying to realize their dream, only to have a viral force majeure set them back to zero. It’s like winning the lottery, then being told that the U.S. dollar has no value.

Heartbreakingly, our own partners have feature films at the festival as well — “Red Heaven” and “Freeland.” Both are labor-of-love films from first-time directors who have spent five and eight years, respectively, trying to make their movies against all the odds. “What now?” has been a constant refrain muttered to no one in particular throughout the weekend.

As we sat in the mixing room trying to finish the film, seasoned sound designer and re-recording mixer Pete Horner felt terrible for us. We tried to keep it light and professional, but there was an unexpected, unwelcome feeling of futility — why race to finish the film? We had merely hours to finish the movie, but spent the entire time distractedly communicating with our team and fielding condolence texts.

We had to notify our executive producers who invested in us, our young staff who skipped weekends and worked long into the night, and the subject himself, Stewart Brand. He gave three years of his life to this production and it’s his legacy story that’s now in limbo.

It’s strange finishing a film the same day its premiere is cancelled. The mood should have been celebratory and triumphant, but doubt filled the room. Will the film be reviewed by critics? Will the film find a distributor? Will our investors feel burned? Some uncertainty is downright philosophical: are we still a SXSW film if we never screened the film? It’s not clear how any of this will shake out.

Regardless, we’re going to proudly put the SXSW 2020 laurels on our film, and we will march on to whatever happens next in the spring lineup of festivals. We are screening at CPH:Dox, SFFILM and Hot Docs, and for all we know, “We Are As Gods” will face a similar problem in every city we are invited to attend.

All we can do is hope that our dreams for this film are delayed, not dashed.

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“I wouldn’t doubt over the next 20 days if we see a festival a day canceled,” says Kevin Lyman, founder of Van’s Warped Tour.

Is Coachella too big to fail?

The Southern California festival begins its two weekend run on April 10 with a fate that has never been more uncertain.

Rattled by a cascade of bad headlines around the spread of the novel coronavirus and fears that concerts and live events could facilitate the rapid spread of the COVID-19 disease, live music executives are nearing the panic moment many have spent weeks hoping to avoid.

“I wasn’t worried about the virus until about 10 minutes ago when I saw that Ultra was postponed,” said one live music professional on Wednesday before Miami’s Ultra Music Festival was canceled, who like many in the business didn’t want to be named in an article about the rapidly worsening situation.

Booking agents, concert promoters and music managers are now being forced to imagine what a concert season stalled by public hysteria over coronavirus would look like — and most agree the picture isn’t pretty

“I wouldn’t doubt over the next 20 days if we see a festival a day canceled,” says Kevin Lyman, founder of Van’s Warped Tour, who believes the situation will get much worse before it starts to get better.

The two most vulnerable states right now are California and Florida, which host the bulk of the spring and early summer festivals. More than 50 cases have already been confirmed in Los Angeles where Mayor Eric Garcetti declared a state of emergency Wednesday morning. The move is largely preparatory in nature but does not bode well for events like Coachella, which begins early next month and takes place over two weekends followed by Stagecoach the weekend after.

Coachella takes place about a two-hour drive from Los Angeles in Indio, California, in Riverside County, where officials decided later Wednesday to activate its emergency operations center due to coronavirus concerns. This action may soon be followed by the county’s own emergency declaration. All of this, according to industry experts, would lead to increased pressure from public officials to take action and pave the way for the festival’s cancellation.

“There’s no one managing it at the federal level, which means this is going to be decided by local officials who wield a ton of power,” Lyman says.

Concerned local citizens in places like Austin — where more than 40,000 people have asked that South by Southwest be canceled later this month — coupled with increased news coverage and widening scrutiny over the use of public resources for a for-profit concert would likely mean increased pressure on promoters to cancel their events.

That would initiate the beginning of a private and public round of “negotiation through threats and hedging,” Lyman says, as the major stakeholders — promoter Goldenvoice, headlining artists and the major agencies — begin to outline a possible wind down. Because the industry is designed in a way that the first person to wave the flag is usually the one that pays the price, this stage can be the most chaotic and visceral.

“The music industry is always a game of chicken and we always push things right to the edge because that’s what we’ve always done,” Lyman said.

Officials with the country’s two largest concert promoters — AEG and Live Nation — have already publicly signaled they won’t pay anyone if a festival gets canceled, since tickets will have to be refunded and revenue from food, parking, drink sales and merch will not be realized.

Artists and their agents, in turn, will argue that promoters like the AEG-backed Goldenvoice carry event cancellation insurance and that both their costs and their profits will be covered. As such, they will likely demand part or all of their promised payments.

But insurance is complicated. Most promoters — including AEG, according to sources — aren’t covered for pandemic diseases within their event cancellation insurance because most event insurance policies exclude infectious disease coverage in their policies. Event producers who want it typically have to purchase a waiver to opt in — which few producers actually opt for, and now is too late to buy.

“Insurance isn’t going to get us out of this one,” explained one music major executive, who said his company’s attorneys are pouring over existing artist contracts and agency agreements for what will usually be the precursor for the final phase — the assignment of blame.

In Coachella’s case — which this year features Rage Against the Machine, Travis Scott and Frank Ocean as headliners — because the festival is ultimately being canceled because of global pandemic, Goldenvoice will likely cite the force majeure clause of the performance contract which waves liability for cancellations beyond a promoter’s control. The Latin phrase translates to “superior force” and is often referred to as the “hand of God” meaning weather events, emergencies and unforeseen crises that make a concert impossible.

“Essentially it applies to something that is beyond anyone’s control,” says agent Jared Arfa with Artist Group International, which represents a number of top tier artists on tour this summer, including The Strokes and The Smashing Pumpkins. Force majeure clauses generally state that promoters are not required to pay artists for cancellations caused by external factors, like a local government agency pulling an event’s permits over Coronavirus concerns.

Over the years, agencies have increasingly tried to demand contractual changes that weaken force majeure to ensure their artists are paid something or have their costs reimbursed. For this year’s South by Southwest, agents have been demanding no force majeure, meaning artists get paid by promoters even if the entire festival gets canceled. Corporate events and festivals from new promoters are also seeing no force majeure clauses written into contracts, but Arfa said most big promoters will not accept changes to force majeure when they’re putting millions of dollars on the line.

That then leads to the final stage for Coachella — the triggering of force majeure, which has to be done by an outside agency like a local health department of law enforcement agency. It’s not enough for a concert to be worried about negative press the spread of pandemic disease — for force majeure to be triggered, a promoter has to be able to show that they were given no other choice but to cancel, often at the insistence of public officials.

“That puts a lot of power in the hands of local officials, many of whom are unelected,” Lyman says. While some officials could be quick to cancel an event despite the lack of a clear threat, others could refuse to issue a cancelation order out of fear of retaliation or to protect a city’s investment in an event that may generate tax dollars through hotel stays and sales tax revenue.

(In 2016, Coachella and Stagecoach were projected to bring in $704 million in overall economic activity, according the Coachella Valley Economic Partnership and Greater Palm Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau.)

An official cancellation would trigger refunds and most fans would see money automatically redeposited in their accounts. There would also be significant damage to the local economy as income anticipated for home rentals, event spaces, transportation services and restaurants would all be lost. While some local businesses likely have business disruption insurance, payouts could take more than a year to materialize and it’s likely only a fraction of vendors and local landowners’ losses would be covered.

“If Coachella gets canceled, there’s really no events that are probably safe,” says Lyman, noting that the collapse of one of the world’s largest festivals would undermine confidence in the entire live music ecosystem.

“They still have a little more time before pulling the cancellation trigger, but unless the situation improves soon, the momentum might be too much for Goldenvoice to stop,” says one source. “If this is going to work out, things need to start going right very soon.”